Political Quotes

“there is no doubt our employment situation in America is not good. Unemployment remains consistently high long after the administration has told us the recession is over. The growth that has been projected year after year has not been at the level the experts had projected. CBO has missed the growth levels. The Federal Reserve has missed the growth levels. We have come in below that consistently. Growth is not where we need it to be; there is no doubt about it. So we have a serious unemployment situation. Perhaps the most grim concept we need to be well aware of is that workforce participation; that is, the percentage of Americans in the working age group who are actually working is lower today than at any time since the 1970s. That is a stunning statistic. Not since women entered the workforce in large numbers have we seen such low workforce participation numbers. I believe, first and foremost, that an unemployment extension bill is treating the symptoms of the problem. It is an aspirin for a fever, but the fever has been raging for weeks now. Something is causing it, and we need to deal with the cause of it rather than continuing to treat the symptoms. I think that is so important for us to remember. Also, this Nation is struggling economically for a number of reasons. One of them clearly is the size of our debt. Our debt is so large-- $17-plus trillion--now that it is causing uncertainty in the economic markets. We have to get our spending under control.…”